I thought of a few mind-fuck things that could fall into this category, but all the ideas I came up with might dowse someone's burn. I have come to the conclusion that the things that we react to unconsciosly and powerfully are usually associated with danger or fear. A very softly played recording of a hurt child calling for help, for example, could be very powerful but get people upset and cause powerful emotions if someone has recently experianced a tragedy involving something like that so I am not sure I could do it. Same with the sound of squeeling wheels and a crash out of nowhere in the middle of the night.

In other words, everything I can think of that might cause a strong involuntary response might also trigger very stong unpleasant feelings from people that might have experianced such things in real life and I really don't want to cause pain to anyone. Possibly scare the shit out of them, yeah, but I don't want to trigger any PTSD in anyone.

Basically what I am looking for are limbic system responses without a lot of angst. Any ideas? I think the it thing I am going to do will be pleasing for people that get it but I would rather go even further.

Hey, Geekster. Don't they say that olfactory stimulation has the deepest and most direct contact with the subconscious/unconscious? What if we got some blower fans and a bunch of perfume samples and see how many people walk in looking for their mother or ex-girlfriend?

Yeah, I thought of that ... that's why I want to fire up a shipload of bacon and coffee one morning on the playa. Camp coffee, you know, where you boil the wanter and dump the coffee right in. Coffee and bacon are pretty powerful.

I also thought of perfumes too but the ones that smell really good are also really expensive.

Yeah. Those are great smells in the morning. Do you think they would wake people up that are starting to get sleepy at midnight or so? As for cheap perfume, I only choose to remember the slutty girlfriends anyway

Plastic hose draped around my body attached to breathing mask which is offered to all those that inquire. "What distant memories does this odor represent for you?" Other end of hose discretely shoved up my ass.

geekster wrote:Basically what I am looking for are limbic system responses without a lot of angst. Any ideas? I think the it thing I am going to do will be pleasing for people that get it but I would rather go even further.

yeah, go for stuff babies dig: Heartbeats. Breathing. Laughing. Touch. Music. Etc. There's plenty of info out there on limbic development in infants & it's all quite pleasant. It's not snarky or hip, but it will prevent people from coming to your camp & going fetal...

"A number of possible art themes were considered this year, and many contenders fell by the wayside. These include the perennial Swiss theme that we keep canned and on the shelf for use in an emergency (banking, chocolate, precision watches, obsessive tidiness, political neutrality). Another theme considered and discarded was "The Good Old Days", a retro concept that commemorated the founding of our city. Recreation would consist of dragging folks around on tarps attached to pickup trucks. But some of us -- who actually recall the good old days-remembered that there wasn't any art at Burning Man in 1990.

Not sure if this fits into the Turning Man for theme based discussion but thought I'd bring this up...

Bill Viola is an artist who works primarily in video. His works are dwell very much on the psyche, unconscious and sub-conscious. His installations usually take up an entire room or two with many of them being projected on large screens. His last show The Passions was at the National Gallery in London and was pretty big hit. Folks looking for a theme specific project might consider heading over to his web site http://www.billviola.com/ or follow the Google rabbit hole by doing a search for 'Bill Viola' and checking out the various works he's come up with over the years. Pretty interesting stuff.

geekster wrote:Basically what I am looking for are limbic system responses without a lot of angst. Any ideas? I think the it thing I am going to do will be pleasing for people that get it but I would rather go even further.

yeah, go for stuff babies dig: Heartbeats. Breathing. Laughing. Touch. Music. Etc. There's plenty of info out there on limbic development in infants & it's all quite pleasant. It's not snarky or hip, but it will prevent people from coming to your camp & going fetal...

Maya

So I guess my idea for 200 Watts of the background music from the shower scene from Psycho at 3:00 AM is out?

Actually, the more I think about that, the more I like the idea of some soundtrack material from some classic horror flick that has no dialog, aside from possibly some shreiking. Maybe something from The Birds ... or Jaws ... there were plenty of scenes where there was no actual dialog but you can tell by the background music and noises what was going on. Maybe toss one in from Deep Throat just to keep people off balance.